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1405 1408-9 1412

Purged Purged with Court's Indulgence

Usually, then, approximately half of those accused purged themselves, and approximately half of those received the courts’ indulgence. The dip in the grant of the court’s indulgence might be taken to hint at an increase in severity on the court’s part, but the minimal decrease in the number of people who were able to purge mitigates this perception. In this case, the increase in the number of people who were able to purge themselves without the court’s indulgence corresponds almost exactly to the decrease in the number of those who were granted it, suggesting that grants of the court’s indulgence were either poorly recorded that year or were less needed for some reason. The 1412 visitation stands out for two reasons: the much lower number of total cases of adultery reported and the significantly larger percentage of people who were able to purge themselves. Taken together, the two give an impression of laxness, as though adultery was pursued less vigorously in 1412 than in the earlier two visitations. However, the

reason might be better described as resignation than as laxness; it may be that the most recalcitrant of cases had already been reported in the two earlier visitations, and that the questmen in 1412 were generally reporting only new cases, in which the perpetrators tended to be less incorrigible than those in cases which had been going on for many years.

The court seems to have granted its indulgence more freely in some times and places than others. In the 1405 visitation the pattern is quite striking: in each village where accusations of adultery were made in 1405, either everyone in the village who purged did so with the court’s indulgence or everyone who purged did so with a full complement of oath-helpers. In Harnham, Fordington, Sherborne, Faringdon, and Hurst, no one was granted the court’s indulgence. Seventeen accusations of adultery out of 26 were purged. In Kingston, Beaminster, Ramsbury, Hungerford, and Beydon, fifteen of 25 accusations of adultery were purged – all with the court’s indulgence. The most dramatic example is that of Hungerford, in which eleven couples were accused of adultery. Ten managed to purge themselves with the court’s indulgence. Overall the apparent generosity of the court in allowing the accused to purge themselves resulted in conviction rates remarkably similar to those in which no indulgence was granted. In villages where the accused were able to purge themselves without the court’s indulgence, 65.4% of those accused purged themselves; in villages where the court’s indulgence was granted, 60% of those accused did so. In the remaining sixteen villages, 22 couples stood accused of adultery, and none of them managed to purge themselves.

In 1408, the court’s indulgence was granted piecemeal and more rarely. In Lyme, Netherbury, Faringdon and Highworth, only one accusation of several was purged in each

village, and then only with the court’s indulgence. In Yetminster [Yatmynstre,

Yatminstre] and Sherborne, with eight accusations each, roughly half of the accusations were purged, and roughly half of those with the court’s indulgence. Seventeen other villages laid a total of 32 accusations of adultery. Eighteen of these accused couples purged themselves, but all of them apparently managed to produce the requested number of oath-helpers. Thus in villages where people purged themselves without the court’s indulgence, 53.1% of couples were able to purge, while in those in which the court’s indulgence was granted to a few, 41.9% could do so. The gap is wider than in 1405, but still not vast. Furthermore, as in 1405, villages where the court granted its indulgence still had a lower rate of successful purgation than those in which people purged without it.

The 1412 visitation saw a return to the pattern of 1405 in that the court’s indulgence was granted to everyone purging in a village or to no one at all. The court granted its indulgence to all those who succeeded in purging themselves in Bere Regis, Chardstock [Cherdestoke], and Beaminster – eleven out of thirteen accused. In

Charminster, Stratton, Fordington, Yetminster, Sherborne, Mere and Faringdon, everyone who purged seems to have done so normally – twelve out of sixteen accused. In the remaining seven villages, none of the thirteen of those accused purged. Where the court’s indulgence was granted, 84.6% of the accused purged; where it was not, 75% did so. Not only is this a dramatic increase in the proportion of accused adulterers who managed to purge themselves, but the trend of previous years is reversed: for the first time, villages where the court’s indulgence was granted had a greater purgation rate than

those in which it was not. This might be an indication that the court’s indulgence, given sparingly in earlier years, was granted more liberally in 1412.

One might assume that grants of the court’s indulgence represented laxity, that these were cases in which the court lacked the will to enforce the law strictly. Timmins, the editor and translator of the register, argues that “almost certainly it [compurgation with the court’s indulgence] perverted justice.”⁹⁸ To the modern mind, compurgation is already suspect, and relaxing its standards might seem equivalent to giving up on the effort to enforce the law at all. Yet in the register it seems that villages in which the court granted its indulgence did not see a great increase in the number of people who purged.

This suggests that the power to relax the court’s compurgation requirements was used with discretion. The important difference was not between villages in which purgation was made with and without the court’s indulgence, but between villages in which purgation was made and those in which it was not. In villages in which purgation took place, a villager accused of adultery stood a good chance of purging himself –

approximately 75% in 1405 and 1412, approximately 45% in 1408-9. Yet in many villages each time, no one successfully purged himself of adultery.

In the visitation of 1405, compurgation for adultery was made in Harnham, Kingston, Fordington, Beaminster, Sherborne, Ramsbury, Faringdon, Hungerford, Beydon, and Hurst. Of a total of fifty charges in these ten villages, compurgation was made in 33, that is to say in 64.7% of cases. But the number of cases actually punished was only eleven (eight fines, three beatings); in six cases the court seems to have taken no action. Thus only 23.1% of accusations of adultery in purgation villages were

98 Timmins, xxxi.

punished. In the non-purgation villages of Combe, Byre, Tonerspuddle, Preston, Netherbury, Beaminster Secunda, Yetminster, Winterburn Dauntseye, Durnford,

Chasingbury, Crofton, Highworth, Brewick, Sonning, and Alfeldcross, a total of twenty-one accusations of adultery were made. However, these accusations resulted in only five finings and a single beating. Even though no compurgation was made in any of these cases, only 28.6% of those accused were punished for adultery. Most of the rest either failed to appear before the court or were able to use their influence to avoid being formally summoned. Two of those in the former group were suspended for contumacy, but in nearly two-thirds of the cases – thirteen out of twenty-one – the register shows no action taken by the court. The lack of compurgation in these villages, then, made

punishment of the accused somewhat more likely, but the difference is not what a reader skeptical of the institution of compurgation might expect.

In the visitation of 1408-9, purgation occurred in more villages, even though it was not more frequent overall. There were 63 accusations of adultery in the seventeen villages where purgation was made that year. Thirty-one accusations were successfully purged, or approximately 49.1%. There were fourteen finings and three beatings, for a punishment rate of approximately 27% – similar to the figures for 1405. Another six adulterers who failed to show for their hearings were suspended, but this was a

punishment for contumacy rather than for adultery per se. There were only six villages in which no purgation was successfully made in response to accusations of adultery.

Although these villages were few and represented only eight total accusations, in 1408-9 they were unusually effective at punishing their wayward citizens. Of eight accusations, five resulted in fines and one in a beating, for a punishment rate of 75%. In the other two

cases, the accused failed to appear and was suspended for contumacy. This handful of villages seem to have been unusually strict in 1408-9. Their remarkably high punishment rate (which would equal 100% if suspensions for contumacy were counted as

punishments) gives this visitation the appearance of being the hardest of the three on adulterers.

In 1412, purgation again occurred in most villages in which accusations of adultery were made, and again the minority of villages in which no purgation was made had much higher punishment rates, although the difference was not as dramatic as in the previous visitation. The ten purgation villages reported 29 cases of adultery, of which 23 were purged. There were four finings and a beating in these villages, for a very low punishment rate of 17.2%. In the seven villages in which no purgation was made, the questmen made thirteen accusations of adultery. The results were remarkable – no fines at all, but four beatings. This unusual feature aside, the overall punishment rate was relatively high at 30.8%. As in the visitation of 1408-9, but unlike that of 1405, the villages in which no purgation was made proved much stricter than those in which it was.

The unusual 100% rate of beatings of those punished in the non-purgation villages also adds to the appearance of harshness there in 1412.

Overall, then, it seems that, despite the results of 1405, villages in which

compurgation was made were less likely to punish offenders than those in which it was not. This may have been because the questmen of those villages were more concerned about sin and more determined to punish sinners. This possibility seems less attractive, however, when one notes that only one village (Bishopston) was a non-purgation village in both the 1408-9 and the 1412 visitations. On the other hand, mere coincidence also

seems an inadequate explanation, given the large numbers of the accused who purged themselves in most villages and the sometimes large numbers of those who failed to in the exceptions. In Combe, for instance, none of the three cases of adultery resulted in purgation in 1405; nor did either of the two in 1412. Yet in 1408, both accusations resulted in successful purgation. And this sort of all-or-nothing pattern can be seen in many other villages. A cynic might argue that Shirburne simply felt more merciful on some days than others, but this would be missing the vital point that compurgation did not normally happen at once. The accused usually had a few weeks or even months to collect his oath-helpers. Thus any lack of mercy would have to be attributed to the whole village rather than to Shirburne. This, in the end, seems the best answer possible given the data in Chandler’s register. Certain villages in certain years (influenced by their questmen, no doubt, but also by other factors) were less inclined to help accused adulterers to purge.

Sentences of Fustigation

Of course, not everyone was able to purge. The court usually sentenced those who failed to clear themselves to a number of beatings. Often, confronted with the public knowledge of their sins, the accused confessed. In Sherborne in 1408, Master Shirburne sentenced two accused adulterers “to be beaten thrice through [the chapel].” These were Stephen Scrivener, who confessed to adultery with Alice Kembester, and John Hold, who confessed to adultery with “Isabel, a married woman.”⁹⁹ However, most of the time the guilty party paid a fine in lieu of suffering a beating. Things so often happened in this

99 Chandler Register, no. 221 (pp. 84-5).

roundabout way because the court was not allowed to fine sinners directly – perhaps because this would have seemed too much like selling licenses to sin. The court could, however, impose penances and then accept fines in lieu of carrying them out.¹⁰⁰ Thirty-seven fines for adultery were paid in Chandler’s register, while at most twelve cases were actually punished with beatings. In the case of Sherborne in 1408, Stephen paid a fine, but John did not and was probably beaten.¹⁰¹

The process of fustigation which the court ordered was usually described in the register as “three beatings through the church.” In one case, that of Agnes Knoll of Fordington, the register goes into slightly more detail. It orders her “to be beaten thrice in front of [the] procession through [the church].”¹⁰² This was probably the standard procedure. Most likely the guilty party walked in front of the procession which was a regular part of church services, being beaten with a rod in front of the whole community.

The blows of the rod were not intended to cause injury and humiliation, rather than pain, was the principal deterrent. While three was the standard number of beatings, the court occasionally ordered only one or two and sometimes ordered six. It might also order that beatings proceed through the marketplace as well as the church. In these cases a cleric probably beat the guilty party through the market on market day for maximum

exposure.¹⁰³

The dean’s visitation to Byre on 9 October 1408, shows the variety of possible outcomes when beatings were ordered. This visitation featured seventeen cases of

100 Timmins, xxx.

101 Chandler Register, no. 221 (pp. 84-5).

102 Chandler Register, no. 13 (pp. 8-9). Although this case involved adultery, Agnes was not herself an accused adulteress. Rather, she was punished for spreading rumors that another woman, Denise Stury, had committed adultery.

103 Timmins, xxix.

adultery or fornication, resulting in a total of fifteen sentences of fustigation. Ultimately, however, most of the offenders paid fines, and none of the sentences was actually carried out. The standard sentence of three beatings through the church was handed down in twelve cases, all of fornication. However, three people faced beatings on two counts of fornication each , which is to say that they had multiple partners: Edith Walters

[Walderes], John Shine [Shyne], and Roger Bachelor [Bachelere]. In these cases it is not always clear whether the multiple offender faced three beatings or six. Edith confronted two sentences of three beatings each. Both of the men paid up, and so she escaped both beatings. John, on the other hand, had both his lovers mentioned together, apparently in the same indictment. He had to pay a fine for all three of them to escape his beatings.

However, the total number of beatings mentioned is three, suggesting that, had he not paid, all three of them would have been beaten together for a total of three times each.¹⁰⁴

Roger’s sins were also lumped together into a single case in the register. Like John, he paid a fine for all three parties. However, the register suggests that had he not paid, the outcome would have been very different: he would have been beaten six times, and his lovers might not have been beaten at all. This may indicate that the court blamed Roger for the two affairs more than it did the two women. Perhaps the details of the case made them feel that Roger’s behavior was more exploitive than John’s. Yet it was John, not Roger, who seduced a servant. Roger’s case stands alone as the only case from this visitation in which fornicator received a sentence harsher than the usual three beatings.¹⁰⁵

104 Chandler Register, no. 190 (pp. 72-4).

105 Ibid.

The two adultery cases on this visitation, however, both featured threats of

harsher beatings. Joan Bryce and John Cerles were sentenced to be beaten thrice through market as well as church. One of them paid a fine for them both to escape this sentence;

by the grammar of the words in the register, it was Joan who paid, although this would have been so unusual that it seems just as likely that the clerk was imprecise in his wording. Richard Healy [Helye] was sentenced to six beatings for adultery with “one Isabel.” Isabel’s lack of a last name may indicate that she lacked roots in the community.

She may have been a recent immigrant, or even a migrant who had already passed through town (in which case she would have been unable to answer the summons.) In any case, she did not come before the court and was suspended. The court may have sentenced Richard to a double sentence in her stead, but it may also have increased his punishment to register disapproval at a citizen’s adulterous involvement with a rootless wanderer.¹⁰⁶

As the example of Byre in 1408 shows, sentences of beating were rarely carried out. In Dean Chandler’s register, 36 cases of adultery resulted in fines, whereas no more than 12 ended in actual beatings. Thus threatened beatings were averted by the payment of fines at least 75% of the time. The number of actual beatings may be even lower, because most of the cases I have counted as beatings list nothing further after the sentence of fustigation. I have assumed this to mean that the sentence was carried out, but some of these may simply have been cases of sloppy bookkeeping.

In 1405, seventy-one accusations of adultery resulted in thirteen fines (18.3% of accusations) and four beatings (5.6%). In 1408-9, seventy-one accusations resulted in

106 Ibid.

nineteen fines (26.8%) and three beatings (4.2%). In 1412, only forty-two accusations were made, and fines were paid in only four cases (9.5%), but it seems that five beatings were actually carried out (11.9%). In most ways these results match previous findings.

The visitation of 1408-9 produced similar results to that of 1405, but was significantly stricter in terms of fines levied. Although 1408-9 appears less strict than 1405 in terms of beatings administered, the difference is only one beating. The visitation of 1412, which seems in many ways laxer than the previous two, not only produced fewer accusations overall, but a smaller percentage of those who were accused were fined. However, in apparent contradiction to the picture of relaxed discipline otherwise presented by the 1412 visitation, this year produced the greatest number of beatings. Since this year also featured the smallest number of accusations, the percentage of accused adulterers actually beaten is much greater than in previous years – over twice the frequency of 1405 and over three times the frequency of 1408-9.

There are several possible explanations for this. Some of them preserve the idea that the 1412 visitation was a relatively easy-going one. The result may have been a mere statistical fluke – after all, the total number of beatings concerned is very small. Or the laxity of the 1412 visitation may have extended to the clerks, who simply failed to record the final resolution of several cases. Where a beating was assigned and no further note made, it may have been because of clerical laziness rather than because the beating was actually carried out.

Other possible interpretations discard or modify the notion that the court was less harsh in 1412. The first two visitations may have been so successful at eliminating the

Other possible interpretations discard or modify the notion that the court was less harsh in 1412. The first two visitations may have been so successful at eliminating the